Pennsylvania lawmakers pass few laws

State House batting average roughly .080.

December 08, 2012|By John L. Micek, Call Harrisburg Bureau

HARRISBURG — — If the greater Lehigh Valley's delegation to the state House of Representatives were a professional baseball team, only a handful of its members would have batting averages high enough to stay in the majors.

That's the .200 average (the number of hits divided by the number of at-bats) generally considered the baseline for staying in the big leagues. It's named for one-time Pittsburgh Pirates shortstop Mario Mendoza, who hit .180 to .199 for four of five seasons between 1975 and 1979.

The Morning Call created a legislative batting average by comparing the number of bills introduced by each lawmaker with the number that actually became law.

By that standard, six area lawmakers — Reps. Gary Day, R-Lehigh; Joe Emrick, R-Northampton; Doyle Heffley, R-Carbon; Mike Carroll, D-Monroe; Jerry Knowles, R-Schuylkill, and Steve Samuelson, D-Northampton — would have been put on waivers or given their outright release. None had a single bill of which they were the prime sponsor signed into law during the 2011-12 legislative session.

Just five lawmakers, all of them Republicans — Reps. Marcia Hahn of Northampton County, Ryan Mackenzie of Lehigh County, Marcy Toepel of Montgomery County, and Katharine Watson and Marguerite Quinn of Bucks County — had averages high enough to keep them in the majors.

"No one has ever accused the Pennsylvania Legislature of being the major leagues," scoffed Tim Potts, chairman of the Majority Party PA, a political action committee focused on good government issues, as he ticked off a list of problems with the state's current legislative process.

Chief among them, he said, are issues of management and productivity. More than 4,000 bills were introduced in the state House and Senate in the latest two-year session. According to Potts, only 350 became law.

The rest languished in committee. Or hit a wall in the legislative process after escaping committee. Or were put to a vote on the House or Senate floor and defeated. Or passed in just one chamber, never making it across home plate. That's an overall productivity rate of about 8 percent.

"Ninety-two percent of their effort amounted to nothing," Potts said.

Of course, all bills are not equal. Maybe your local legislator had only one bill signed into law, but it was a game-changer. Maybe he had several, merely to rename local roads and bridges.

"Are they tangible [accomplishments] or are they window dressing?" said Jerry Shuster, a professor of political communication at the University of Pittsburgh.

Potts faulted legislative leaders — particularly majority Republicans in the House and Senate — for bottling up bills they opposed, or for failing to act on bills sponsored by Democrats.

"If we could overcome the management problems of the General Assembly — there are members with real areas of expertise," Potts said. "But the system is not structured to allow us to do good things."

Or maybe it's just the system. Congress posts similar numbers. Of 12,114 active bills and resolutions, perhaps 5 percent will become law, according to govtrack.us, a website.

Chris Borick, a political science professor and pollster at Muhlenberg College in Allentown, said "all kinds of circumstances … militate against" efficient lawmaking, including the sheer number of state lawmakers. Pennsylvania has 203 in the House and 50 in the Senate, making it hard for an individual to be heard. "It's a top-heavy system."

Take, for instance, freshman Rep. Doyle Heffley, R-Carbon. He sponsored seven bills; none became law. At least one, however, could have been scored as a triple.

Heffley's bill (requiring the state to consider an applicant's military experience when he applies for licenses or jobs) cleared committee in the House. Then, it was unanimously approved by the House. But the Senate adjourned for the year Nov. 30 before putting it to a vote. The bill stemmed from experiences Heffley had in a previous job in the trucking industry.

"I wanted to build on it at the state level," he said in an interview, adding that he plans to reintroduce the bill after a new Legislature is sworn into office in January.

Another measure Heffley backed, allowing hospitals to claim Medicaid reimbursements for patients who use what's known as "telemedicine" to speak via computer with specialists, was authorized by the Department of Health, sidestepping a legislative process that could have taken years.